Dungeons of Dredmor - The Next Patch

EXALTATIONS UNTO KRONG! While he cannot disclose any sales numbers, he is exceedingly pleased by sales of Dungeons of Dredmor, bringing Krong in all his glory to the masses (and also that slimy, good-for-nothing Lutefisk God.) Long has his anvil-shaped heart awaited this moment, and he thanks his chosen Mightily.
Nonetheless, he hears the people crying. “Krong,” they say, “why hast thou forsaken us? Our game, it crashes. Our game, it has small icons. Our game, it lacks keyboard binding interfaces, yea, and other certain necessities.” And Krong didst look upon his people, in their despair… and wept.
And lo, so it came to pass that Krong didst re-chain Gaslamp Games to their anvils, and Gaslamp Games has come forth in order to help the people. And lo, a great Patch came to pass upon the land, to be released Early Next Week.
What is in said patch? Krong is so very, very glad you asked.The following bugs have been fixed:
- Fixed: Anvils of Krong spawning in hallways for no good reason
- Fixed: crash that occurred when moving up stairs or down stairs, randomly
- Fixed: Knightly Leap now covers the full span of Knight Movements.
- Fixed: shopkeepers doing odd things when picking up and dropping items after load/save
- Fixed: crash when using invalid missile sprites
- Fixed: merchandise not cleared when you go downstairs
- Fixed: backwards conditional logic on ranged monster attacks means that monsters were not consistently casting spells; fixing this makes the Dungeon 95.2% nastier.
- Fixed: Current Active Skill crossing over between new games
- Fixed: the bug with save games overwriting themselves if you have two characters with kind of the same name.
And the following new things shalt be added:
- Key binding interface.
- Automatic Saves in the Case of Crashes.
- Changes to how Permadeath works. We’ll now delete the file when you actually die.
- Auto-loot toggle.
- SHIFT-Click and Click Reversal Button. (Makes SHIFT-Click work like CLICK! Makes CLICK work like SHIFT-Click!)
- Rapid selling of items in the store, yea, by holding the SHIFT-Click button and smacking the inventory while standing in a shop.
- Fifty New Achievements
- Steam Overlay Support, yea, though it is Experimental and Requires your Graphics Card To Support OpenGL
- In-game Leaderboards, Yea, For Messing With Your Friends
- Steak Grilling
- Magnification of UI elements to TWICE their Size (Yea, Though We Know Not How Far We Can Get With This In The Allotted Time, Though We Are Working On It)
All Glory Unto Krong!
EDIT: There will be future patches. We’re not dealing with content and gameplay balancing yet because we want to get this stuff fixed. Likewise, we’re not turning on the Mod Support yet because we want to get the core gameplay fixed. Et cetera, et cetera.

I want sales numbers. I am really curious to see how the 5 buck plan worked out. Of course, I have no idea how big of a cut Steam takes, so said numbers won't do me much good; but still. I can't wait to see what the do with new content.

Curious to see if there any monsters beyond those squid heads who should be casting spells but are not. Extremely bland and simplistic monsters are currently one of the biggest problems with this game.

@Santos I'm extremely interested as well. If they released their numbers after a year has passed it might help other indies in deciding what kind of price point they want to put on their game as well. Granted this game is kinda unique in a way so I'm not so sure even if they sold a billion of these things that other indies would do as well with such a low price point. Still it would be nice if they decided to share the secret to their success with at least other indie developers out there.

I made it to lvl 4 before a crash to dektop killed my character. Not sure how many levels there are, in most roguelikes the 4th dungeon level would be barely scratching the surface, but in DD getting there was the result of several hours of playing.

Originally Posted by Santos
I want sales numbers. I am really curious to see how the 5 buck plan worked out. Of course, I have no idea how big of a cut Steam takes, so said numbers won't do me much good; but still. I can't wait to see what the do with new content.

I think Steam takes about 30% of the price, so 70% goes to the developers. It is much-much more then they get for a boxed version.

I think this kind of pricing is very successful when you have Steam to handle exposure. In fact, the convenience of Steam coupled with the free exposure AND a small price should almost be a 100% watershed recipe for success. I can't imagine it not being one, anyway.

I have zero doubt in my mind that this price will yield them a FAR greater return than a high price would, like the one Vogel chose for Avadon on PC.

The amount of people willing to try something like this out for 5$ should be huge compared to shelling out 25$ for a "meaty" RPG.

Ironically, though, I think there's a limit to how low you should go if you're selling something more substantial, like Avadon. 10$ strikes me as ideal for that kind of game.

DArtagnan

Sales figures would be interesting but would prove nothing. There is no way of comparing the number of sales they might have made at $10 or $15 or whatever. I'm sure the $5 pricetag has helped make it popular - but would it have made more net profit for Gaslamp at $10? We'll never know. They also have little room for sales prices down the track.

It might not prove anything by itself - but it would likely help with future considerations for similar products. If we compare similar games at various price levels - given similar distribution models - I think it should be possible to estimate what's best for a certain kind of game.

Isn't that exactly the kind of thinking so many here supported, when Vogel set his price low on the iPad?

I'll be curious to see how this will compare - saleswise - to other games of its ilk released on Steam, by new teams. I can certainly see many following suit.

I don't see why they would need a sale at this low price, so I doubt much is lost there either way.

It's not like anyone ever really proved anything regarding games and the perfect price. All we can do is observe and try to make smart decisions.

Originally Posted by szokol
I think Steam takes about 30% of the price, so 70% goes to the developers. It is much-much more then they get for a boxed version.

I think 30% is the rock-bottom lowest Steam ever takes on a title, and then only on mega-titles like Dragon Age. Indies I think they grab 40% or more.

Not to knock the pricepoint. Plenty of indie games have made a fortune (and by fortune I mean six figures) with tiny prices. Imagine all the people who pay the five dollars and never ever actually play the game. It's like a whole other market segment.

Originally Posted by screeg
I think 30% is the rock-bottom lowest Steam ever takes on a title, and then only on mega-titles like Dragon Age. Indies I think they grab 40% or more.

I'm not sure, I've seen a lot of people on message boards claim a lot of different numbers but it was all just based on sutff they thought they heard somewhere. The only thing more official I have seen is a quote from an Indie developer saying that they can't talk about their valve cut, but that it is consistent with how much they would have to pay on other services.